End of the Road

by LS Hawker

  “Thanks,” Jade said, hoping Elias wouldn’t say anything more from upstairs as more bangs and clunks sounded on the second floor.

  Connor exited out the front door, and Jade walked into the kitchen as Berko shouted up the stairs, “What’s the problem?”

  Jade heard Elias come charging out of his room above her head. “It’s not here,” he said. “It’s gone.”

  In the kitchen, Connor’s tool belt was still curled on the island. Jade picked it up and headed for the front door. “Be right back,” she said.

  Outside, Jade ran down the front walk and searched the greenbelt, but she couldn’t see the maintenance man. She walked back toward the house and decided to leave the tool belt on the front porch in case Connor realized he didn’t have it. She had the urge to go through pockets on the belt but decided against it. This guy was a lackey, a tool like them. She dropped the belt on the porch and went back inside. She opened the front windows so she could hear if he came back. She didn’t want him lurking around outside eavesdropping.

  When she turned around, Elias stood at the top of the stairs. “They fucking took it,” he said.

  “The phone?” she said.

  As the words came out of her mouth, she had the feeling her ears were plugged, and she moved her jaw. Every sound in the house seemed to be on a millisecond delay, as if she were hearing everything twice.

  “Is there a radio on somewhere?” she said.

  Olivia ran toward the stairs and took them two at a time. “Come on,” she called over her shoulder. “Let’s help him look.”

  Ookookook

  “It’s not here,” Elias said. “I told you.”

  Ououou

  What the hell?

  “Do you hear that?” Jade said.

  “I’m going to help you look,” Olivia said in a tone that didn’t invite discussion. She disappeared into his room, and Berko followed.

  The noise Jade heard seemed to be echoing in from the open windows. She looked out at nothing, then went to the front door and went outside. She closed the door behind her, but she could still hear the other three talking, as if they were right next to her.

  Elias’s voice: “They took my phone because they’re not going to let us call out.”

  Berko: “Shit just got real.”

  Jade glanced down at her feet and there lay the tool belt, and the walkie-talkie, which had landed facedown. She lifted it and her friends’ voices came clearer.

  Olivia: “Oh, yeah? It wasn’t real enough to see all your secrets puked up all over everybody?”

  Jade twisted the dial on the receiver, and the voices got louder, first through the windows then a microsecond later from the walkie-talkie.

  Her insides seemed to melt and drain toward her feet, making her legs weak. There were microphones in the house. There were probably cameras. She had to shut everyone up and let them know what she’d discovered without actually saying it. How was she going to do that?

  Jade twisted the dial on the walkie-talkie, set the tool belt down, and paced in front of the house.

  She didn’t know Morse code, and even if she did, she had no idea if any of the others did. They needed to communicate in code. Jade ran through various ideas in her head—pig Latin, semaphore, windtalking.

  And then she remembered the paper she’d written on atypical communication represented in popular culture, and her premier example had come from the ultimate nerd resource—Star Trek: The Next Generation. The 102nd episode of the series was often regarded as its creative peak, in which Captain Picard finds himself unable to communicate with an alien race until he comes to understand they communicate by citing examples of their mythology. The episode was called “Darmok.”

  She and the others could communicate through their own mythology—that of popular nerd culture. She had to hope whoever was watching and listening wasn’t a supernerd. Jade reentered the house.

  “Hey, guys,” she called up the stairs. “Come down here.”

  Olivia appeared at the top of the stairs, her posture impatient. “What is it?”

  Jade willed Olivia to come down, staring hard at her, her lips pressed together.

  Her brow furrowed with curiosity, Olivia looked over her shoulder then back at Jade. “Hey, guys, Jade needs us downstairs.”

  Her tone of voice did the trick, because both men appeared at the top of the stairs, and Jade gestured them down.

  “I’m sure you just misplaced the phone,” she said emphatically.

  Berko and Elias glanced at each other, suspicious, but they followed Olivia down the stairs. Jade indicated the sofa and chairs with her hand then sat in one.

  Though confused, everyone went along with it.

  Jade cleared her throat, gave each of them a meaningful stare, and said, “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.”

  Berko’s confused expression morphed into a wide grin and he nodded excitedly at her, sitting in the chair opposite.

  Olivia sat at one end of the couch, Elias next to her, and crossed her legs. “What in the hell are you—”

  But Elias touched her arm, and said, “Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel. Mirab, his sails unfurled.”

  Olivia’s mouth dropped open, and she said, “Darmok.” She smiled, her eyes glittering.

  Jade said, “We should watch a movie. Have you guys ever seen THX 1138?” She hoped this wasn’t too obscure a reference. It was possible none of the others was this deep a film nerd. But she hoped the fact it was the student film of George Lucas, the father of Star Wars, would ring some bells.

  “I’ve seen it,” Berko said, concentrating hard on Jade’s face. “But I don’t think it’s in the library.” He flicked his eyes toward the other two, who stared in confusion.

  “Yeah,” Jade said. “Remember SEN fifty-two forty-one and LUH thirty-four seventeen?”

  Those were the names of two characters who were in charge of surveillance in the film’s dystopian future world.

  Elias and Olivia traded glances, and Elias shrugged.

  Berko said, “If they ever made a movie of this situation, Elias, what actor would play you? I’m thinking Will Smith would play me, and Gene Hackman could be you. What do you think?”

  Jade hoped they’d recognize the reference to the electronic surveillance movie Enemy of the State. From their identical expressions of understanding she saw they did.

  “Maybe we could watch Lord of the Rings again,” Olivia said. “Although I’ll have to leave the room whenever the Eye of Sauron comes on screen. So creepy.”

  They got it.

  It appeared Elias was trying to inconspicuously scrutinize the ceiling.

  This dawning realization made everyone go still. Of course they were being monitored. That’s what the NSA did.

  The four of them sat in silence, trying to work out what to do in their own minds. They needed to get in touch with Dan, and the only way to do that was to escape the Compound. How could she relate this to the team though?

  “We could rewatch Firefly,” she said, “watch Captain Tightpants lead the Browncoats. If the Browncoats can track him down, of course.”

  Elias laughed at this nod to Joss Whedon and the one-season series about a group of independent soldiers fighting against the corrupt Alliance.

  “But . . .” Berko said. “What would happen if Captain Tightpants turns out to be Cypher?”

  Cypher was, of course, the traitor in The Matrix.

  Jade’s face flamed.

  Elias made a psh noise and said, “More like Giles the Watcher, right?”

  Jade laughed at the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference, and realized Dan was indeed her Watcher.

  “And anyway,” Olivia said, “it’s straight up Leia and Obi-Wan.”

  The Star Wars line dropped into Jade’s head. “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”

  Their only hope, their only choice, was to reach out to Dan. Everyone knew it.

  “How about some Shawshank action?” Elias said.

  The ot
her three looked at each other.

  “Well, you know what I always say,” Jade said. “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

  That was of course a line from The Shawshank Redemption, a movie about a prison escape by tunneling through a wall.

  “We don’t have twenty years,” Olivia said.

  “Not to mention,” Berko said. “It could be Burn After Reading.”

  Yes, it could. The NSA could indeed release the information they’d gathered on each of them.

  “Right, Berko,” Olivia said. “But Captain Tightpants definitely knows All the President’s Men.”

  Berko’s expression brightened. Dan had contacts in every area, including the media. They could release their own story before the NSA could release theirs. He smiled at Jade.

  Jade thought. She had to reference a movie where the escape happened by going over a wall, i.e., the ten-foot chain-link fence that surrounded the Compound.

  “He also knows Rocky the Rhode Island Red.”

  This was a reference to the stop-motion animation film Chicken Run, in which the chickens escape a factory farm by catapulting themselves over the wall.

  Olivia nodded, but the other two didn’t understand.

  “All right, we could watch Game of Thrones, then,” Jade said. “And now their watch begins.”

  Everyone nodded, but their faces all said, how and when are we going to do this?

  “Who wants to play Dominion?” Berko suddenly said.

  Elias smacked the heel of his hand against his temple, shook his head, and fluttered his eyelids as if this were an outlandish suggestion. But he rose and retrieved the board game from a cabinet in the corner of the living room and everyone gathered around the dining room table.

  They were being too quiet, acting suspiciously, so Jade needed to talk about anything, try to draw them all in. When they’d first met, one way they bonded was giving “best-of” and “first” lists.

  “Best superhero movie,” she said. “Top three. Mystery Men. Iron Man. The Incredibles.”

  Berko went through the cards and pulled the ones he wanted, then laid stacks of ten in front of each of point of the compass.

  “Mystery Men is not a true superhero movie,” Elias said. “The Dark Knight. The Avengers. X-Men: Days of Future Past.”

  Berko took three moat cards end to end in the center of the table. He placed a militia card in front of Elias. He laid a witch card in front of Olivia, an adventurer in front of Jade, and a bureaucrat card before himself.

  Olivia wrinkled her nose at Elias then studied the cards on the table. “Yes, Dark Knight. No X-Men at all. Deadpool. And . . . Guardians of the Galaxy.”

  “No,” Jade said. “No outer space movies.”

  “You didn’t specify,” Berko said.

  “Okay,” Olivia said. “Fine. Spider-Man 2.”

  “Yuck,” Jade said, and pulled three random cards from the deck by Berko. Then she tapped the top of her left wrist and laid the cards facedown, two vertical, one at an angle at two o’clock to indicate the time she figured they should attempt their escape.

  Elias nodded, pressing two fingers to his temple, looking to Jade for confirmation, and she nodded back, glancing at the other two, who also nodded. Elias swept up the three cards and put them back on the deck. “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” he said. “Avengers. Iron Man.”

  “Copycat,” Jade said. “And Dawn of Justice sucked.”

  Elias shrugged.

  Olivia gathered up the four cards in front of each of them and lined them up on one side of the three moat cards.

  “First video game you ever played,” Berko said, even though they’d done this one weeks ago. But Jade appreciated his attempt to keep the conversation going. “Mine was Lego Lord of the Rings. The best part was the battle at Mordor’s gates. That’s where I excelled.”

  Jade knew this not to be true, since that game came out in 2013. But she also knew the battle at the gates of Mordor was a diversionary tactic to distract the Eye of Sauron. Berko was saying they needed to draw the guards’ attention. But how?

  She couldn’t help it. “But how?” she said.

  He laid his hand on her wrist and stared hard at her. “It’s what I was best at. Always.”

  She blinked. “Okay.”

  He considered the other two and they nodded. “Well,” Olivia said, “you should absolutely do what you’re best at. My first game was Tetris.” She selected her witch card, held it up for all to see, then passed it over the moat and set it down on the other side. She put the adventurer over next.

  Elias slapped his hand down over the cards and shook his head vehemently. “I hate Tetris,” he said, and put the witch and adventurer cards back.

  Unruffled, Olivia repeated putting her and Jade’s cards over the moat and looked hard at Elias as she passed the bureaucrat over then picked up the militia card and showed it to him. “Y: The Last Man was also a favorite.” She was referencing a comic book series in which every living thing on earth with a Y chromosome died, except for one man. Then she laid down Elias’s card next to the other three. “Yorick’s mom—” she touched Jade’s adventurer card “—was the only reason they ever found Dr. Mann in the first place.” She touched the witch card. “And of course, I loved Nintendo DS Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Sacrifice. Willow usually went before Buffy, remember? Can’t hurt to have some mojo to slow the vamps down.” She took her hands away and went silent.

  Elias set his elbows on the table, staring down at the cards, seeming to work out the logic of this. He finally gave a terse nod. “Then all we need is Dean’s baby, or at least the roadhouse.”

  Jade was surprised to hear a Supernatural reference from Elias. Yes, they’d need a car or somewhere with a phone, and they would run through the fields and prairie until they found one or the other.

  Their shared fear gave Jade strength.

  “Have fun storming the castle,” said Olivia, forcing a smile.

  Jade made herself laugh and endeavored not to think of the next few lines in The Princess Bride. She gathered up all the cards. “Guitar Hero,” she said and dealt Dominion for real.

  Chapter Fourteen

  After the Dominion game, Olivia found a pen in the junk drawer in the kitchen and wrote on her hand, then showed it to Jade and then the other two: Let’s go find out where all the Reavers are.

  Another Firefly reference, but she was talking about the guards and where they were stationed around the perimeter of the fence.

  Aloud, she said, “Jade, you want to go for a walk? Stretch our legs?”

  “Sounds good,” Jade said and followed Olivia out the front door.

  Once they were away from the house, and presumably away from the microphones, Olivia said, “We need to go to the lab before we head for the fence.” She held up a hand to prevent Jade’s objections. “If we’re caught, we say we couldn’t sleep and decided to check on the simulation. Then you lock them out of the system so they don’t have access to our work. Once we talk to Dan and everything comes out, maybe we’ll be able to salvage what you’ve done.”

  Jade slumped. “Won’t they just blow up the supercomputer?”

  “Are you kidding?” Olivia said. “The government wastes money, but I can’t see them wasting that much. Then we’ll walk out and take different routes to the fence corner and make our getaway.”

  Olivia was right, Jade decided. They had to prevent the NSA from accessing their work. No telling what they’d do once they found out the team had escaped.

  They walked in silence for a bit.

  “Hey, Jade,” Olivia said. “I’m sorry for what I said in the lab. I get mean when I’m scared. You should be mad at me. But I’m sorry.”

  Jade said, “I’m sorry too. But it’s obvious they’re using Dr. Heller’s Blame Thrower.” A Mystery Men reference, which made Olivia laugh. But Jade was shocked by how easily they had turned against each other.

  They walked along the fence, and as they neared a guard in camo, he
walked the other way.

  “I’ll bet you’d never be friends with someone like me under normal circumstances,” Jade said. “Would you?”

  “That’s not fair,” Olivia said.

  “Would you?”

  Olivia snorted. “Probably not.”

  Jade nodded, satisfied with honesty.

  “Here’s what you need to know, though,” Olivia said. “I have always been the smartest in the room, even at Johns Hopkins. But what you’ve accomplished with the Clementine Program has got me gobsmacked. I am one hundred percent in awe of you. In the stress of the moment, I wanted to lash out and bring you down to my level, and that’s the truth.”

  Jade saw in her eyes that it was.

  “And then you defused that situation at the bar in town like such a badass. I pretend I’m tough, but it’s all just talk.”

  “Olivia, you are tough. You scare the hell out of me.”

  Olivia laughed as they came upon another guard.

  By the time they made the rounds, they’d counted five guards, all with rifles, and determined the best place to go over the fence—the southwest corner that faced away from all the windows of the office building’s living quarters side.

  Jade leaned into Olivia as they stared out over the beautiful greenbelt, the pool, the park benches, and trees. “I’m really scared,” Jade whispered.

  Olivia hugged her, and she whispered back, “Don’t be. What are they going to do if we’re caught? Shoot us?”

  Jade couldn’t help but feel that yes, they might shoot them. But . . . the guards wouldn’t actually shoot them, Jade kept assuring herself. They’re here to protect us. And to scare us into staying, because national security depends on us staying and finishing. If they kill us, the project is unfinished.

  When they got back to the house, Jade could smell frying meat and vegetables, and she was famished. She scratched at her neck, where some sort of heat/stress rash had appeared. “Well, this is great,” she said, showing it to Olivia.

  “Put some alcohol on it,” Olivia said, and then poured Jade a tall gin and tonic. Jade didn’t often drink gin, but tonight she would make an exception.